NORTH KOREA CONDUCTS NUCLEAR TEST

Turns out Kim Jong Il did not apologize for the test, China now says that report was wrong.

"Since President Bush announced two weeks ago that he would hold North Korea "fully accountable" for any transfers of nuclear weapons or materials, commentators have been trying to explain what that would entail, though often making fools of themselves in the process. I wrote about the challenge a few years ago, and a few others have too, but a new article out in Nature today does by far the best job yet of explaining the technical opportunities and challenges involved, while suggesting some interesting policy measures."

Looks like the Bush policy is working.

sorry is this the nuke iran thread or the nuke korea thread? Bush will be nuking somewhere by mistake before long.

Looks like the Bush policy is working.

The Americans backed down in the face of the dprk atomic bomb, and started talking directly to the Koreans.

TOKYO Nov 11, 2006 (AP)- The U.S. and North Korea may hold talks in New York as early as next week aimed at working toward the resumption of six-country discussions on Pyongyang's nuclear program, a newspaper reported Saturday.

Citing unnamed sources familiar with U.S.-North Korea affairs, Japan's Mainichi newspaper reported that officials from the two countries will discuss, among other issues, financial sanctions imposed on North Korea.

Last year, Washington claimed that Banco Delta Asia SARL a bank in the Chinese territory of Macau was being used by North Korea for money-laundering. The U.S. banned transactions between the bank and American financial institutions.

Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department said North Korea will get a chance to seek access to its frozen overseas bank accounts when six-nation negotiations are resumed.
... ... ...

Quote:

Japan's Mainichi newspaper reported that [..]

The news was reported at 15:00JST (0600GMT) in the Japanese edition of the paper, but currently it does not appear in the English edition.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea has the ability to put a nuclear warhead onto a medium-range missile and threaten its regional neighbors, especially Japan, some U.S. experts believe.

With North Korea preparing to return to six-party talks on its nuclear program, scientists and other analysts stress that few facts are known about the reclusive country's capabilities and conclusions depend largely on circumstantial evidence.

U.S. intelligence officials say there is no evidence that North Korea has physically "mated" a warhead to a medium-range Rodong missile, let alone has nuclear-armed Rodongs ready for launch. Some officials believe Pyongyang has yet to meet the engineering challenge of arming a missile.

But word that the North Koreans tested a relatively small nuclear device on October 9 is bolstering assertions that Pyongyang has moved directly to a warhead for its medium-range arsenal.

"We've assessed that North Korea can put a warhead on a Rodong," said physicist David Albright, who heads the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.

"What you're trying to do is reduce the diameter to fit inside a re-entry vehicle. You can do that with a crude nuclear weapons design," he added.

John Pike, director of the Alexandria, Virginia, online think tank GlobalSecurity.org, agrees.

"I have never been able to understand why there would be any doubt about North Korea's capacity to put a nuclear weapon on a medium-range ballistic missile. They've had it for several years," Pike said.

The Rodong has a range of 870 miles, which could hit most of Japan and all of South Korea.

Richard Garwin of the IBM Research Center and Princeton professor Frank von Hippel also suggest North Korea could be aiming for a warhead small enough for the Rodong or even its shorter-range Scud missiles.

. . . .

U.S. intelligence determined over a decade ago that Pyongyang was trying to develop a warhead for its medium-range arsenal but had yet to overcome the engineering obstacles.

Albright and Pike said those hurdles appear now to have been surpassed.

North Korea would have to conduct test a Rodong with a simulated warhead, before deploying a credible medium-range nuclear threat, U.S. intelligence officials said.

Albright and Pike said Pyongyang may have done just that on July 5, when it test-fired seven missiles including Rodongs.

FAT GERMAN RABBITS TO FEED POOR

Monster Bunnies For North Korea


By David Crossland
An east German pensioner who breeds rabbits the size of dogs has been asked by North Korea to help set up a big bunny farm to alleviate food shortages in the communist country. Now journalists and rabbit gourmets from around the world are thumping at his door.

It all started when Karl Szmolinsky won a prize for breeding Germany's largest rabbit, a friendly-looking 10.5 kilogram "German Gray Giant" called Robert, in February 2006.

Images of the chubby monster went around the world and reached the reclusive communist state of North Korea, a country of 23 million which according to the United Nations Food Programme suffers widespread food shortages and where many people "struggle to feed themselves on a diet critically deficient in protein, fats and micronutrients."

Szmolinsky, 67, from the eastern town of Eberswalde near Berlin, recalls how the North Korean embassy approached his regional breeding federation and enquired whether it might be willing to sell some rabbits to set up a breeding farm in North Korea. He was the natural choice for the job.
Each of his rabbits produces around seven kilograms of meat, says Szmolinsky, who was so keen to help alleviate hunger in the impoverished country that he made the North Koreans a special price -- €80 per rabbit instead of the usual €200 to €250.

"They'll be used to help feed the population," Szmolinsky told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "I've sent them 12 rabbits so far, they're in a petting zoo for now. I'll be travelling to North Korea in April to advise them on how to set up a breeding farm. A delegation was here and I've already given them a book of tips."

Greedy Rabbits

Szmolinsky knows what he's talking about. He has been breeding rabbits for 47 years. The 12 bunnies he sent can produce 60 babies a year -- if the North Koreans find enough food to feed them properly. "I feed them everything -- grain, carrots, a lot of vegetables. At the moment they're getting kale," said Szmolinsky.

"One rabbit provides a filling meal for eight people. There are a variety of recipes such as rabbit leg or rabbit roulade. No one buys rabbit fur anymore though, I just throw that in the bin," says Szmolinsky with chilling dispassion.
He breeds between 60 and 80 rabbits per year and manages to stay emotionally detached enough to send the furry, innocent-looking, huge-eared creatures to slaughter. Asked if he has any pet bunnies he could never part with, he said: "You can't hang on to them, if you did you wouldn't be able to breed them."

Szmolinsky's North Korean connection has attracted media attention from around the world, and he seems to be getting tired of it. "I'm getting ambushed by camera crews," he said, adding that he was booked up with interview appointments for days. "There's a Japanese crew flying in from Paris later."

Potential Chinese buyers have also expressed an interest. Szmolinsky doesn't know how many more rabbits he will be sending to North Korea and said he definitely wouldn't be increasing his own production to satisfy growing demand from Asia.

"I'm not increasing production and I'm not taking any more orders after this. They cost a lot to feed," he said.

New Doubts On Nuclear Efforts by North Korea
U.S. Less Certain of Uranium Program

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 1, 2007; Page A01

The Bush administration is backing away from its long-held assertions that North Korea has an active clandestine program to enrich uranium, leading some experts to believe that the original U.S. intelligence that started the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions may have been flawed.

...
The accusation about the alleged uranium program backfired, sparking a series of events that ultimately led to North Korea's first nuclear test -- using another material, plutonium -- nearly five months ago.

President Bush told a news conference that [2002] November: "We discovered that contrary to an agreement they had with the United States, they're enriching uranium, with a desire of developing a weapon."

Meanwhile, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the chief negotiator for disarmament talks, last week told a conference in Washington that it is unclear if North Korea ever mastered the production techniques necessary for such a program.